[lbo-talk] munchers

ravi ravi at platosbeard.org
Sun Jun 7 09:46:18 PDT 2009


On Jun 6, 2009, at 11:43 PM, Michael Smith wrote:
> As a theoretical linguist, of course, he's been proven wrong
> time and time again.

Indeed, but AFAIK primarily on the premature claims of innateness (which is a huge question of course, but in a technical sense, is much lesser significance than his UG work, focus on syntax, and so on). One only need check the EvoLang whining ;-) (I kid on the whining bit -- they have their often legitimate beef(s)). But it’s a disservice to speak of him only as a theoretical linguist. The man is a giant (the parent) of not just [modern] linguistics: Doron Zellberger at Rutgers has called him a father of computer science as well (for quite understandable reasons). And I bet he doesn't know any programming language either ;-) (shades of Djikstra's "computer science is no more about computers..."?).

--ravi



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